Reviews Given
Very well written piece. You have a promising future as a writer. Keep it up!
Wow! This is a fine piece of work, a very easy read and hard to put down. With a few small changes I think it is publishable.
I have a few editing suggestions that I will send offline. Andy's review on Part 2 makes a good point about verbosity in some places. However it looks like you have done some work on the section called "The Equation." It seems very tight now and tells us something about the maturing Kalind and her labour to learn 'the art of balance.' (That is a novel concept ... rhythmic gymnastics as a martial art for self defence??? ;-)
I did wonder about the ending. Will you be posting other parts of your 'larger work in progress' so we can learn what happens? I can imagine Kalind becoming a despot like her uncle which would be very sad.
My only real complaint is that you set this story in a far future world, but except for the colony ruins there is nothing to make this sci-fi. It's maybe more accurately labelled fantasy or paranormal.
All the same ... so well done, a brilliant piece. Cheers!
Neat story!
You could expand upon it ... show us a little more of Timmy's world before he first talks to the bugs, and maybe share a couple of other bug conversations. It's an imaginative story and so why not run with that a bit further?
Thanks for contributing to shortstories101. Well done!
I liked this story a lot. You accomplished a lot within the space of 900 words. I would like to read more of your work and see what you can do in other formats.
I think you have an interesting concept here, but it seems like you just started drafting and didn't try to create a whole narrative. Don't be afraid to continue building on it. Your instinct to withhold information is good, especially in flash story format. But you've withheld too much. We can only guess what is happening in the second part.
Not a bad effort, though the rhyming seems a bit contrived.
I think you mean "hearse," not "hurst."
(You still can edit the poem after it's uploaded.)
This story is engaging and interesting so far. It's a little difficult to understand who is doing what to whom in the first half. But I am interested in reading the rest to see where this goes.
I like some of the imagery and imaginative use of metaphors, like "I'm a forgotten picture frame." Overall, however, it's rather glum and self-pitying, and it seems a bit lazy with phrases like "I'm just so lonely."